My Biggest Problem with Guild Wars 2

One of the most striking issues with GW2 for me was in the disjointed relationship between gravity, levity, story and presentation. You have a fairly seriously “story” built to draw you into the world and shepherd you through, yet that story is presented in a way that feels rough and somewhat silly. The game is beautiful with voice acting and wonderful environments, yet the emptiness of the world overcomes that promise and leaves you with only a passing connection to anything you encounter.

You move from quest to quest, zone to zone clicking and killing. These tasks are all “different” somehow in story, but the result is a not-even-veiled cycling of the same few mechanics over and over. Eventually you just go to a new empty heart, fill it up and go without a moment’s care for anything other than the “tick up”.

The combat adds to the sense of pointlessness as the removal of the traditional trinity(+) just causes a DPS and Don’t Die rush. Combat with others is chaotic and often unrewarding.

The “Living World” content would be a huge saving grace, except for the utter lack of writing talent. The “Living World” stories suffer from the same sort of disconnect where the silliness and near-amateur story execution undermines the seriousness and sense of caring that’s required for serious investment.

I liked many aspects of Guild Wars 2 as well, and I thought it had a great deal of potential. It’s a huge game full of content which, perhaps, was spread too thin. Perhaps it will become one of those games I go back to down the line and find a new appreciation for what has been learned all around. The “Living World” content has so much potential, but the storytelling skills need some fine tuning before Guild Wars 2 starts to rival my attention with The Secret World or Final Fantasy XIV.